WINTER GRIST FOR THE BIRDS 



February 2d 



L *v 



WEED has been described by Emerson 

 as " a plant whose virtues have not been 

 discovered," and it must be confessed that 

 many of them fail to show any good reason for 

 |^ their existence until the secret is disclosed in 



\ their dried and brown skeletons against the 

 . A , snow. There is the pretty ragweed, for instance 

 ,* (Ambrosia), figured on page 44. Who has ever 

 said anything good of it? Its copious pollen is 

 accused of being the provoking cause of hay-fever. Even 

 Burroughs, who certainly might have been expected to 

 discover some redeeming trait in the weed, only heaps 

 ignominy upon it. "Ambrosia, ' food for the gods,' " he 

 says. " It must be the food of the gods if of anything, 

 for, as far as I have observed, nothing terrestrial eats it, 

 not even a billy-goat." 



It is certainly delightful food for the eye, with its 

 finely-cut, graceful summer foliage and long tapering 



